on wanting: holding on tight to a lot of things, and not about to let go

The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want. - Psalm 23:1

*  *  *

I am full of wants. I am a child with a never-ending list for Santa. I have a belly that has never known fullness. I am at a restaurant but wanting a buffet, one of everything, please. I want a house, a husband, a child, a new phone, shoes and bags and a car and friends that will always love me and a bedroom makeover and a body makeover and a whole life makeover, while I'm at it. My shelves are never full enough, my cabinets can always hold more. I want bags full of nice things and packages waiting for me at my door every day. I want to discover things I forgot I had and receive gifts I never knew I wanted. I want to feel full and high and happy and pleased. Yes, please.

*  *  *

I have a friend who has been learning lately that the Lord is her portion. When she says this, I nod and smile and think how glad I am for her, after all she's been through. And then I think of the things I have been asking God for in prayer, and He asks the question of me, "Can I be your portion, too?" This question makes me nervous and sad because I assume that means my list is null. If I agree that God is enough for me - and when I say God, I think I mean His love, which sometimes I don't even recognize, I don't even know if I've every truly recognized - if I agree to this, then does that mean I won't get those things? If God is my shepherd, I shall not want, but is that a description or a command? Mostly I have been treating it as the latter.

*  *  *

I have been wondering if all of this wanting, if all of this list-making, finds it's origins not in an empty stomach but in a lonely, fearful soul. It is when I feel truly alone, or when I am fighting my fear of being alone, that I find myself wanting most. It is then that I go shopping online, or stop for coffee and a cookie, or rent a movie or frantically call or text friends who will spend time with me or give me words that can soothe me.

*  *  *

Jesus said [to the man who had many things], “There’s one thing left: Go sell whatever you own and give it to the poor. All your wealth will then be heavenly wealth. And come follow me.” The man’s face clouded over. This was the last thing he expected to hear, and he walked off with a heavy heart. He was holding on tight to a lot of things, and not about to let go.  -Mark 10

moving out, moving on

So I moved out. I packed boxes with books and kitchen utensils and candle holders. My cookbooks filled their own box, the heaviest of all of them. I packed about five more boxes of kitchen items than I anticipated, and spent more than I'd budgeted to outfit my new kitchen, and still there are things - like plates, like a pot to boil water in - that I am missing. I folded blankets and sheets and clothes into more boxes and my suitcases. I took frames off the wall and used the tail end of the hammer to pull the nails out (is there a verb for that action? I couldn't find one just now). My friends came over and helped me take apart and put together a bookcase, fill a moving truck, carry my clothes still on their hangers and buy a fridge. And now I am moving in, putting all of my things in their own new homes inside my new home, making a home for me and for others (if even just for a few hours of their visit). My last night in my old house I was afraid I'd made one of the worst decisions of my life to date, and on the first evening in my new apartment I drank wine and danced like a fool because no one was watching and no one cared and I love new beginnings.

This is all moving, all the physical placement of things. But I realize I've been putting off some of the other moving, the moving on. And I don't mean moving on like forgetting, but like packing and taking it with me. This is what gets lost in between all of those little boxes I drew next to the items on my checklist. This one can't easily be checked off because it will take time and sometimes it happens not when I plan. It doesn't all fit in a box. But to help it along, I bought gifts for my old housemates (or should I say, my second family of brothers and sisters and nieces), one of which I didn't even give yet. And I keep putting off the writing of notes, the expression of how much they gave me and what I am taking with me and setting up in my new apartment. The generosity and perspective and acceptance and memories that weigh more than my full box of cookbooks and will be what makes this apartment a true home.

a mercy

It always happens over dishes, this explaining of ourselves to each other. I pumped soap onto the wet sponge and lathered it over the pot as you started, as you told me you didn't know how to start. You explained your piece as best you could while I focused on the dishes, on piling them up carefully on the drying rack so that they wouldn't fall. I squeezed the sponge dry, turned off the water, and turned to stand against the counter. I knew I needed to respond but wasn't sure how I would do it without crying the tears that have been coming so easily, like a deep well with no bottom. We both acknowledged we didn't want things to change, and we both agreed that they probably would, maybe they already had. Just the day before I'd been lying on my bed looking at the bookcase you helped me move into my room when the thought, "what will I do without her" came to my mind, and with it new tears. I hadn't really let myself think about it that way until I remembered the bookcase, how heavy and big it was. It had weighed on my mind for days, how to get it into the house from the garage where I'd put it together. It was a job for more than one person.

We talked for fifteen, maybe twenty minutes, each of us saying basically the same thing over and over. You let me feel my pain, which to some might have seemed merciless, but was a mercy to me. You didn't try to dry my tears or cry them with me, but you let them flow, maybe hoping with me that the well will dry up someday soon. Later, I took out the cake you brought home for me the night before, and when I asked if you wanted to share it, you said no. You brought it home for me, not for us. So I ate it alone.

the questions themselves

Is there a magic notebook where I can write down all the questions I keep asking myself that have no good answer? Then the question, once written, would somehow be resolved and never needed to be asked again? If you find a journal like that, tell me where you bought it. Or add these questions on my behalf:

Why can’t I write better?

Why is my voice so weird?

When will I get over that friendship that I ended, but then realized that she was ending it, too?

Why can’t I get my act together?

Why didn’t he like me?

Why does my hair do that?

Why can’t I express myself more clearly?

Why can’t I be more like her?

Why do I always seem to get stuck at mediocre when I try to be really good at something?

And maybe I’d like another journal where you can write down questions and the answer magically appears the next time you open it. My list would include:

What do I do with regret?

Can I be truly happy?

Am I missing out on something big as a single person?

If I risk big things to go after some dreams, will I be ok if I fail?

Instead, maybe I’ll write on the inside cover of my real journal — the one in which I am usually too timid to write these questions — one of my favorite quotes:

Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves.

-Rainer Maria Rilke, Letters to a Young Poet

free-write: on rediscovering

Looking for something a former-me wrote, I slid my 2009 journal off my shelf. It's a thin volume of lined (always lined) cream-colored pages with a bright woven fabric covering reminiscent of those pot holders we used to make as children (remember those?). I bought it from the clearance bin at Urban Outfitters in Santa Barbara for $4.95 and then couldn't decide if it was ugly or not, so it sat on my shelf, empty and stiff, for some time. Journals are to me what shoes are to most women: I can't resist a deal and sometimes that can lead to buyers remorse. 

Finally I decided that at the very least it was fit for scraps of information that didn't fit anywhere in the neat, tidy, narrative-only journals I used to keep. I started with recipes, an email address, and directions to I don't know where. My idea-collecting evolved to include church notes, weekend to-do lists, prayer items and taped blurbs cut from magazines, even poems, anything from mundane to inspiring. Soon it bulged with all the extra papers I stuff inside the front cover and I wrapped it with a rubber-band to contain it. Bursting -- this is what I wanted my imagination to be. I took it everywhere, and it held everything that was important to me. It's bright, ugly colors soon became endearing because it was unique and bold and sure of itself in an overstated way.

****

A few weeks back, I did one final desperate search for a passport I haven't seen since two apartments ago. We had just finished dinner, the house was warm and dimly lit, and my housemates all sat contentedly in the living room, reading or playing on their iphones. And I, feeling lazy and a bit lonely, tried to guilt-trip them into helping me look for it. Drudgery is always easier with company. One housemate graciously obliged and sat on my bedroom floor to keep me company as I pulled out old shoeboxes and containers to root through. The search included my old green plastic expanding file, one I've had for nearly 10 years and haven't looked through in at least 3. Started before the time of google reader, pinterest and bottomless email storage, I used to print out articles, or rip them from magazines, and even cut them from newspapers, information I knew I'd want to access someday. There was an LA Times article on slums, the piece written and read by my cousin from my Nana's funeral, and an update letter I wrote to family and friends after my trip to Manila. My housemate and I laughed at some of the things I'd saved, but I also held those remnants with great care, and afterward put them back in the file, because I knew the girl who had collected those things. I can look back now and marvel at what she was trying to do, who she was trying to be. Even if I'm not sure she would recognize me, that night I remembered with respect and a bit of awe what she was like.